Friday, June 14, 2019

Do The Math, 2019 version


My Inner 12-year-old loves that the placement of the filtration units
on the German hazmat suits means your farts are immediately
vented into the infected patient's room.


























The title may be familiar to long-time readers of this blog. If you want, you can peruse the original 2014 version, which according to Blogger is one of my Top Five Greatest Hits, feel free. (Go read it. Take it to heart. It's five years later, and US hospitals are still as unprepared now as they were then. Worse even. Because now, they've pen-whipped imaginary policies into place, but with zero training, and no/inadequate supplies, so now they think they know what they're doing. But they don't. And TPTB, locally, and nationally, know it, and they don't care. Sleep tight. Pleasant dreams.)

But Anonymous poster in Comments to the last post thoughtfully sent along the following info, and the link to it:

Thanks for all the (terrifying) information. I researched and found some information on BL-IV beds here. Apparently they call them "High-Level Isolation Units" in the EU.

London, Royal Free Hospital - 1
Newcastle, Royal Victoria Infirmary - 6
Madrid, Hospital La Paz - 5
Berlin, Charity University Medicine - 4
Hamburg, unnamed hospital - 6
Rome, Lazzaro Spallanzani - 8
Unnamed other center in Italy - ?

Most don't have the staff to care for that many patients at once.

This information is from the following blog by a NHS nurse at the Newcastle facility who won a grant to tour the BL-IV beds of US and Germany, Italy and Spain in 2018:
http://www.nhshighlevelisolation.com
Since I do the slogging so you don't have to, I read that grant recipient's blog report.
I recommend it. For general information.

The information shows Europe, in its entirety, could handle perhaps 31 BL-IV/HLIU patients, per that research/blog.

So how many could they really handle?

London, Royal Free Hospital - 1
Newcastle, Royal Victoria Infirmary - 2
Madrid, Hospital La Paz - 2
Berlin, Charity University Medicine - 2
Hamburg, unnamed hospital - 3
Rome, Lazzaro Spallanzani - 2
Unnamed other center in Italy - 1
So in actuality, they can only deal with 13 Ebola or other HLIU patients out of 31 beds.
(Presumably, Eastern Europe and Russia could do something similar, or perhaps to a lesser degree.)

Not bad, for tiny outbreaks locally, like in 2014.

Recall, for those who don't, the US/N.A. numbers were 23 notional beds, and staffed for only 11 actual BL-IV level patients.  With the addition of U Iowa and Bellevue in NYFC, we get 4 more actual BL-IV beds in the US, maybe another dozen notional but unstaffed beds.
So let's guesstimate it now up to 15 beds. (And 3 of those beds are nominally "reserved" for military cases from ASAMRIID, and the associated network of .MIL facilities in MD, UT, MT, and CO, we have working on chem/bio weapons which we aren't creating, merely defending against. And I have a bridge for sale, cheap.)

That's with Canada and Mexico providing 0 beds apiece.
For reality, let's assume in a crunch, Canada could cobble up perhaps 1-2 beds, and Mexico would still be zero, because they can't, and would recognize that futility with brilliant Latin fatalismo, so they likely wouldn't even make the effort. They're predictable like that.

So 50 beds so far, maybe 100 all in, if Australia, Japan, Switzerland, France, and everyone else pitches in, but staffed, on the best day, for between a quarter and half that many actual patients.

350,000,000 people live in the U.S.
We have, perhaps, 15 beds available to treat Ebola patients safely. As many as 50% of whom would live and survive the infection. 75% if you're really lucky.
So your best odds in an Ebola outbreak if you become infected, are a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of survival. I'd have to check, but I think winning the Powerball lottery is generally about that level.

In short, a dozen or two active cases, and everyone's screwed.
Which means local hospitals and ICUs are trying to bootstrap their way to bare competency in handling BL-IV/HLIU cases. We saw the consequences of having untrained amateurs try that at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas in 2014. It infected two people exactly 21 days after trying it, and shut down an entire 875-bed major tertiary care facility that was key to medical capability in that region, and within a month. (The entire staff threatened a mass walk-out if they didn't shut the whole effing thing down. The ER and ICU were closed for months afterwards. And let's be serious: would you go to the Ebola ER or Ebola ICU the week after they infected two nurses?? Neither would people in Dallas. Double bonus: That hospital is 93 beds smaller (a 10% shrinkage) now than it was in 2014 (968 beds to 875). I'm sure hundreds of millions of dollars of liability and lost revenue from their 2014 escapades had nothing to do with that downsizing.)
I get trained in this nonsense every year, and exactly like military MOPP level training, it reinforces the reality: GTFO of the Hot Zone ASAP, and don't play there, or you're all going to die. The training is only to reduce panic, not save any lives, and keep people from running, screaming, for the hills. The issued gear is a joke, and will be criminally ineffective, and anyone who tries this on the cheap, which is how every hospital in 50 states and 7 territories rolls, is going to infect and kill staff and the public, in about a month.
You read that right, and here, first. Take it to the bank.

Your chances, without even those clown-car levels of resources, of "surviving" fulminant Ebola, only to suffer EVSyndrome for life, are about 1 in 4 during an actual outbreak. 3 chances out of 4, with "palliative" (i.e. helping you die inside your skin a wee bit more comfortably) care, you simply die.

If you read the blog linked, she toured US and European Infectious Disease suites.
I'm here to tell you, looking at the procedures required, those are not going to operate well under higher pressure of actual patients, they will be degraded. Mistakes will happen. Staff members will screw up, and may die as a result. They will, in a short amount of time, realize this, and the people willing to suit up will not increase, it will dwindle, and the units will fail. Ditto for transport, laboratory, and ancillary staff. Most people don't enter any medical occupations, including doctors, thinking they ought to risk their lives to treat patients. The whole point, in fact, is that the only person rolling the dice in any situation is the patient. Your heart attack isn't going to kill me. Nor your gunshot wound, nor your stabbing. Even your HIV is defeatable with $0.03 worth of nitrile gloves.

But your Ebola?
The period in any sentence on this page would be a ball of 100,000,000 Ebola viruses in a patient fully involved and infectious. Enough to wipe out everyone east of the Mississippi.
The number of those viruses from that period-sized ball necessary to infect a medical caregiver, transport person, lab worker, and kill them just as horribly?

One.

With a patient convulsing, explosively sh*tting out their guts, literally coughing out their lungs, and blood running from their eyes, nose, and mouth, all rife with fatally infectious blood-borne pathogens.

Go back to that linked blog, and imagine someone with a couple of gallon jugs of red gloppy dye, and tell them, amidst everyone in their shiny hazmat suits, to randomly squirt out a turkey baster of it up, out, and down, while the staff walks and works in the room. Say once every couple of minutes. Splatter face shields, plop out a juicy glob or three on the floor, and let a constant amount dribble off the edge of the bed.

Some of the staff members will probably start to freak out, even knowing it's just a drill, which is why we never do that even in drills, so as not to let the cat out of the bag.
Ask me how I know this.

Then, after 3-4 hours in those hot, claustrophobic suits, now dripping with deadly simulated goo on the outside, the masks fogged over with sweat and condensed breath on the inside, and not able to hear anything but the powered respirator blower whooshing loudly past your ears for every minute of those same 3-4 hours, and the inhabitants thereof dehydrated, tired, woozy, sensory-deprived, and hopefully not panicky, see how crisp and precise their procedures are. Like starting a simple IV, or drawing blood from the patient. Like we do 10-50 times a shift. (How many hospitals' staff operate in diving gear at depths of >100'? None?? Why d'ya suppose that is, hmmm?)

Sh'yeah, that'll happen.

And with truncated operating times, you'll need 3-6x the number of staff you need for ordinary patients. {Hint: We can't get adequate staffing in any hospital, anywhere, right effing NOW. Do you really think we'll be inundated with 6X as many when Ebola hits?? Sh'yeah, as IF.}

Those people will do one or two shifts like that, and then they're
g-o-n-e.
Called out sick.
Didn't answer their phones.
Never heard from again.

Reality: left skidmarks in the driveway, after mailing in their resignations, loading up the family and gear, and pointing the car towards Bumfuck, Egypt, 500 miles from the next living soul out in the Great American Outback, beyond the black stump.

If they're smart.

We make minor mistakes in clinical care every day, now.
In just scrubs, and comfortable and competent at our jobs.

Put people in unfamiliar environments, in uncomfortable working conditions, with nothing but the prospect of endless more, times months to years, and with the added prospect that the slightest error could result in slow, agonizing nightmarish death? And take out their family and friends as well?

Game. Over.

Throw in vaccination with a highly experimental and clinically untested Ebola vaccine (even one with >98% efficacy like RVSV-ZEBOV, but no idea of long term consequences to recipients; ask the Gulf War I vets how that experimental Anthrax shot worked out), which you don't have enough right effing now of to cover even 10% of the health workers in only the U.S., let alone anyplace else, and you might get 1-5% compliance with hanging around a month or two. By which time, the outbreak will have doubled or quadrupled, for any value of Wherever You're Talking About.
"Best wishes with that plan. 
Love and kisses.
Wish you were here."
-Aesop
BF,E

Now get your stuff together to either shelter in place in self-quarantine, or GTFO to your Happy Place, and do the same thing. For weeks to months, perhaps as long as a year or two. (The West African outbreak, in a population smaller - yes, also dumber, but not by much - than that of the U.S., lasted from December 2013-January 2016, 25 months, before it was officially declared Ebola-free.)
Think about that one long and hard.
BONUS: That will also come in handy for twenty-seven other potential crises. Win-win.

That's what you could be dealing with, if/when it gets here again, and if it overwhelms our ability to adequately deal with it. The margin for error in such an outbreak is zero.
And if it never happens, you've wasted your time, and are now only prepared for a couple of dozen other major problems. How sad for you.

That sharp stinging sensation in the back of your head is Reality bitchslapping you back to itself, once the Official Partyline Happy Gas wears off.




[Blog note: We'll return to blogposts on other regular topics as the Muse moves us, if it ever stops being SS;DD. Just saying.]

40 comments:

McChuck said...

So, the outbreak protocol should be something like: Test for ebola. If ebola is found present in patient, interview to find contacts. Then execute the patient, burn the body, and quarantine the contacts together someplace you can safely (for everybody else) fill with kerosene.

Karl said...

I appreciate your informative posts on this subject. Thanks.

Aesop said...

D'ya remember the scoops in Soylent Green?
There ya go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geol8k3rsLM

Anonymous said...

Doesn't it seem odd that in the first picture there are four people in haz-mat suits and two in scrubs?

Almost as silly as the picture from last time of one person in a full-on suit and the other in a raincoat with goggles.....

Mark D

Aesop said...

It's training; they're observers.


The NY idiots from 2014, OTOH, actually thought Option B was going to work.

Then Dallas happened.

Anonymous said...

Ah, makes sense.

Glad I moved away from major metro areas six weeks ago.

Now to ramp up the preps.

Mark D

Anonymous said...

"only to suffer EVSyndrome for life" But, but, but the NIH declared Nina Pham VIRUS FREE on June 14, 2019 and we should believe that because NIH and they would NEVER lie because .gov.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-ebola-nurse-discharge-20141024-story.html

Nemo

Aesop said...

Yeah, Nemo.

Extremely curious timing for that story, seeing as they've been silent as the grave on her and the other victims since 2014.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

And I'm sure they tapped her spine for CSF, and extracted fluid from the vitreous humor of her eyes, where they've found Ebola long after it's gone from blood tests, just to be thorough.

What's that? They didn't do any of that?

This is my shocked face.

Anonymous said...

@Aesop

The real question is would you or anyone for that matter swap spit or any other bodily fluid with her, EVER?

Nemo

show me one socialist success in world history said...

https://www.france24.com/en/20190614-who-emergency-panel-ebola-deaths-uganda-congo

And this, from the linked article: "On Thursday, the agency acknowledged it had been unable to track the origins of nearly half of new Ebola cases in Congo, suggesting it doesn't know where the virus is spreading."

Anonymous said...

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/life-ebola-nurse-nina-pham-nightmares-aches-hair/story?id=29323837

Well, not totally silent on the nurses. This is from 2015. It doesn’t sound like much fun.

George True said...

Somewhere, at some high up level, there are those in .gov who do know all this. And yet, they intentionally keep our Southern border wide open, allowing hoards of potentially infected Africans to come streaming in. In addition to the recent several hundred Congolese who literally walked right in after wading the Rio Grande, there is as we speak a caravan of hundreds/thousands more Africans in Central America whose announced intention is to come here.

As if that were not bad enough, the so-called religious NGO's (Catholic Charities, Lutheran Charities et al) in addition to bringing in large numbers of unassimible Muslims from the Middle East, are now for some unknown reason purposely flying in hundreds of Africans from known Ebola areas of Africa and seeding them here in large and small towns all over America.

I guess I am just an unhinged paranoid. Because it almost seems like TPTB here in Murka actually WANT Ebola to come here. After all, if you wanted Ebola to break out in the US, what exactly would you do differently than what TPTB have done so far? (Or more accurately NOT done so far.) Never let a good crisis go to waste, right? They have been trying to fan the flames since 2016, but Righty just won't take the bait. So, just import the right crisis that will allow TPTB to take whatever steps they deem necessary, for the public good of course. Paranoid, right? Right?

Anonymous said...

....so....as I have been reading your on-going post's on this issue, it comes to my mind (weak as it is) that if (just if) I was an out of country terrorist (or even in county with the means to pull it off), I would 'import' via our now southern boarder those good third world folks (Africa?) that are infected and voila! cheap, easy and (as I read your on-going posts on this issue) destruction of a basic infrastructure of the US of A not to mention the chaos of the overall population. Forth generation warfare maybe but silent, effective and deadly. Just thinking outside the box (as small as it is for me at times).
Thanks for posting this issue as I do not read about it anywhere else.
Worker

Anonymous said...

This is Anonymous 12:42 from the previous post, who brought the European BL-IV bed data to Aesop's attention. I'll take the handle "Rocco." May I test my understanding of the situation?

To summarize, this strain doesn't always have the one symptom, fever, that can be screened for in any widespread and practical way. The infected become contagious about a week on average after infection and remain contagious for about two weeks before the hemorrhagic crisis which makes it clear that it's Ebola as well as kills 80% of them.

If this outbreak reaches a major city with an international airport, then, by the time the first case is recognized, that first case has infected large numbers of people over the previous two weeks, and those infected in the first week of contagiousness have begun infecting others in the last week before the presence of Ebola is recognized. Contact tracing is possible in rain forest areas where people walk from isolated village to isolated village but is impossible in urban societies. There will be no way to know how many infected people have already gotten onto airplanes going somewhere else in the world.

So once an outbreak is recognized in a major city anywhere in the industrialized world, the virus is very likely to have already travelled to an unknowable number of other countries, from which it will continue spreading in unknowable ways. Once it breaks out of the rain forest, there's no way to tell where the virus is until people start dying, by which time the outbreak is unstoppable in that country. Currently we're at 11 on your 34-point scale but once it reaches a major airport, there's no way to stop it from proceeding a great many points up the scale.

Is that summary correct?

Aesop, maybe you've written about this already somewhere, but why didn't this happen in 2014?

Rocco

Anonymous said...

Well granny died and the 3 yr old is on deck. 3 escaped in Uganda from treatment center with high fever. Its probably nothing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48622635

Stealth Spaniel said...

Wow-just wow. When my mom was a nurse in the 60's, 70's & 80's-oncology was considered the worst trick. Cancer didn't see a lot of cures then, so you knew you were taking care of people who didn't have a lot of upside. This...........is every medical personnel's worst nightmare! You are correct in oh so many ways: first, once this jumps into the public, no one is going into the hospital to provide care. Believe me, when my mother took care of infectious patients, I knew to stay away until she came home, scrubbed in the shower, put her clothes into a HOT water wash, and felt she was disinfected for her family. She even sprayed her shoes with Lysol and stuck them outside to "air" out. My father was required to put "garage" clothes on, and spray the car up with Lysol. Then those clothes went into the same hot water wash. That protocol seems almost quaint. I can't imagine taking care of an Ebola patient, decontaminating at the hospital, coming home in "clean" clothes to embrace my 3 yro. Um.....no. I am so angry at the politicians in this country that willfully expose all of us to this insanity. Thanks for your reality checks.

Aesop said...

@Rocco,

1) Sincere thanks again for that bloglink.
That was pure gold.

2) Re:2014 Pure, dumb luck.
No one else has ever offered any better explanation of things.
WHO never met any of their containment goals in W. Africa in 2014. Not one.
So apparently, it simply killed off all the stupid people, and burned out.

If Duncan had infected a few more people in 2014, we wouldn't have been able to treat the infected ones in BL-IV containment (which was the only other thing that stopped Dallas at 3 cases, total), and in a few weeks to months, the U.S. would have been exactly like Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Just more zeros after the body counts.

But not being African dirt poor, the epidemic would have crossed continents and oceans, and we would have had hundreds of outbreaks.

As it is, one of the two nurses infected (the second one) travelled out (and back, IIRC) on commercial air from Dallas and back while infectious, so the fact that she didn't pass it on to fellow travelers or flight crew was also just happenstance.

NITZAKHON said...

@George True:

Not paranoid at all IMHO.

More to the point: remember that many of TPTB believe that "climate change" is an existential threat - not just to the human race, but to the biosphere in its entirety.

Now let's KNOW THE ENEMY: Imagine you actually believed this. Believed, truly, in your heart that modern industrial civilization was threatening ALL LIFE ON EARTH. What would you NOT do to stop it?

Hope@ZeroKelvin said...

Chance of dying of Ebola if infected - 66%.
Chance of dumbass management by the fed.gov of an Ebola outbreak in CONSUS - 100%.

Aesop nails it. The situation in Dallas should be studied by every healthcare provider in the US as an example of chaos theory as it applies to healthcare. What can go wrong, will. The term "cascading failure" doesn't even begin to describe it. What happened in the hospital was only the 1st order effects. There was a ripple effect to the entire community (2nd and 3rd order effects). What happens to the other patients in the hospital? To the offices of the providers and businesses near the hospital? Do you think you are going to get deliveries to a hospital with an Ebola outbreak? To the gas stations or grocery stores near the hospital? And so on.

We are not seeing that so much in the Congo because, well it is the Congo, and there is no infrastructure to speak of. The bush can conceal a whole lotta of failure.


Now Ebola has been reported in Uganda, another garden spot. Kenya is right next door and both countries rely heavily on tourism for their foreign currency to survive. Gee, where do most of those tourists come from? US and Europe and Australia.

Ebola in the Jet Age, goona be epic.





Anonymous said...

@McChuck
As harsh as it may seem CONTAINMENT rather than "care" (utilizing those facilities already in place for the illegal immigrant pets) is the best course of action. These isolation units are just for show requiring great financial and personal expense to operate them. Ridiculous!

The greatest danger (besides .gov) will be family members unable to accurately access risk, who are compelled to go to work and send their children to school because like, the school hasn't closed down yet. Most people are woefully unprepared to shelter in place for a few days without going stir-crazy (hey, let's go out to eat!) much less months or even a year.

SiGraybeard said...

The training is only to reduce panic, not save any lives, and keep people from running, screaming, for the hills.

So that those trained people drive methodically and calmly to Bumfuck, and don't endanger either themselves or anyone else along the way.

Annabel Lee said...

Can we even count on our government to shut the airports? Obama played tiddlywinks with everyone's lives back in 2014. What would Trump (or possibly Biden) do? Commerce is all-important, y'know. Can't possibly live w/o that plastic shit from China or grapefruit from Bolivia.

And that's not to mention our southern border. Who has the guts to send the army with enough artillery to simply gun down anyone who dares to cross? I don't think Trump does.

thomas said...

One note. Nurse number two travelled WITH the permission of the CDC via airline. 100 degree fever did not quite tip scale to real fever.

Anonymous said...

Interesting tidbit that fits in with this topic - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/nurse-who-contracted-ebola-gives-birth-to-twins/ar-AACSR9F?ocid=spartanntp


Ebola scares the life out of me.

Anonymous said...

Aesop, you know I'm with you on this topic, and I've been adding to my long term bulk food storage every two weeks...

But, the MSF guys are all volunteers, and they not only go to work, but do so at a loss financially.

Most africans are not particularly diligent or methodical but they seem to manage the deconn, donning and doffing reasonably well.

Given the conditions on the ground in this and the last outbreak, how can we reconcile what you (and I for that matter) expect, with the lived experience of the medical teams in africa? After all, there are LOTS of Drs and staff involved, and no or few reported deaths among staff, and none among the Drs.

I don't think the vaccine is the difference because we didn't have widespread losses among the foreign Drs and staff last time around either. (the one nurse iirc, and that from a social engagement not work)

I agree that it's the knock on effects that would be so devastating here or other first world countries due to the dependence on infrastructure and Just In Time delivery.

We also have the experience in Dallas of the guys POWER WASHING the index patient's effluvia off the walk, and the patient's own family who were closeted with him in the apartment, yet none of them got sick.

Is it possible that it's harder to spread this than we think? It can't be luck every time....

nick

kurt9 said...

Assuming you guys are correct about Ebola, one place it will definitely show up is in China. China is the biggest investor and trading partner with Africa now, with several million Chinese living on the continent. I'm sure there are lots and lots of flights between various Chinese and African cities every single day. China is now very urbanized, with most people living in the fancy high-rises that have been built all over the country in recent years. To top it off, there are at least 200,000 African living in the "chocolate" towns (Africa towns) of Guangdong (Shinchu, Hing Kong, etc) province of Southern China. Most of China has long, hot summers with drippy, humid weather.

Chinese people can be messy. They do intense horticulture where they raise pigs and chickens in close proximity to each other. I also read somewhere that pigs can carry Ebola (but not die from it) as well as dogs.

BTW, the Chinese have slaughtered 30% of their pigs (about 200 million) in the last couple of months in an effort to get rid of some African pig disease that showed up about 6 months ago.

Aesop said...

@nick

Too long for comments.
You, sir, get a post.

https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/where-problem-is.html

NITZAKHON said...

I was in China last year, in Shenzhen, coming in through Hong Kong.

LOTS of Africans in the "Ladies Market" that happens there - elbow to elbow shopping with tourists from all over the world. A fair number of Africans working as manual labor setting up stalls. People from the middle east too... doubtless going back home now and again.

In the Shenzhen area proper, very crowded. Factories were shoulder to shoulder with workers, many of whom live in company housing 6-8 in an apartment.

Anonymous said...

350,000,000 people live in the U.S.
We have, perhaps, 15 beds available to treat Ebola patients safely. As many as 50% of whom would live and survive the infection. 75% if you're really lucky.
So your best odds in an Ebola outbreak if you become infected, are a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of survival.


I'm to sure how you did the math there, but it's very very suspect.

Aesop said...

Then you're suffering from dyscalculia, but I'll explain it anyways.

There are 350,000,000 people in the U.S., give or take.
There are 15 staffed BL-IV beds.

15 people will get those beds.
Everyone else will get Jack, and Shit.
(That would be 349,999,985 people, if you're keeping a tally, who will be told "Best wishes" along with such sage medical advice as "Wash your hands" and "Cover your cough".)

Once you get into a BL-IV bed, historically you have a 50-75% chance of survival.
Let's split the difference and call it 66%.
66% of 15 is 10. (But it could range from 7-12, historically.)
You thus have 10 chances out of 350,000,000, which reduces to a 1 in 35,000,000 chance of getting into one of those beds, and surviving.

This is called fractions.
It's generally covered for most people in third or fourth grade.

Unprotected and untreated, 80-90% of Ebola victims die.
Horribly.
"Surviving" for the other 10-20% isn't anything to write home about either.
Read up on Ebola Virus Syndrome.

Short answer, don't get infected.
Stock up, and bunker in.

Because if you get it, and your Case #16 or higher, you're not going to be treated, just farmed out to a death center, where you will die, and then incinerated.
Being dead already, you won't mind that last part.

QED

Anonymous said...

Nurses freak now because of bed bug and scabies patients. Not enough exit doors in my hospital.

Anonymous said...

Aesop,
So the bush people in subsaharan Africa somehow manage a fifty percent survival rate, but if it makes it to the US we're looking at a survival rate of essentially zero. If everyone in the US is infected, only ten people will remain on the continent.
That sound about right to you?

15 people will get those beds.
Everyone else will get Jack, and Shit.


I have a magical formula that will double the number of those beds. Roll more into the isolation rooms.
There are also things called tents...marvelous inventions.
Good grief.

Aesop said...

Fucking brilliant!

And can you also squat and shit out double the number of trained personnel to care for them? Doctors, nurses, ancillary staff, lab techs, clean up crew, everyone? And also shit out twice the supplies necessary to care for them? Another eight tons worth of exposure suits alone, just for 15 more patients? Not to mention medicines, IV fluids, tubing, bedding and linen, and so on?

No...? Can't do that?

Did you figure they were going to treat themselves?
Or that the isolation room magically cures people?

So much for that great idea.

Bush people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with the virus manage a 10-20% survival rate, not 50%. So will we, with similar levels of medical treatment options for the other 349+M people.

So if it infected everyone, only 280,000,000-315,000,000 people here would die outright.

The rest of the survivors, all 35,000,000-70,000,000 or so, would only have Ebola Virus Syndrome, which side affects include eventual blindness, along with perpetual headaches, joint pain, and a host of other debilitating problems.

And they'll have 280,000,000+ corpses to dispose of.
But highway traffic will be lighter, so there's that.

Ebola will also probably become endemic to wildlife species on this continent as well, so we could look forward to additional regular outbreaks, forever, without having to wait for another batch to get imported from Africa.

You're going to fix that with tents?

Genius, pal. Call the Pentagon, and tell 'em you've cracked the whole problem, all by yourself, because all we needed to do was pitch more tents all along.

I've only posted somewhere in the neighborhood of 200+ blog posts on this problem in the last 6 years.
You've skimmed one, and hurt yourself trying to digest it.

Stop thinking now, before you sprain your head.
That was really the most embarrassingly stupid pair of posts anyone has ever put up here, in the history of this blog.

No, really.

Walk tall.
And please, keep your thoughts to yourself.
Entertaining as it will be to people for days afterwards, I really don't like kicking the retarded kids; it just looks bad.

Gray Bell said...

This is easy folks, they dont ever plan on having enough hazmat suits and such.
When it begins to get bad they will simply begin cordoning off infected cities and
giving them the Dresden treatment. Fire bombing would be much more fun and effective.

Anonymous said...

If you look at the population charts of countries hit by ebola in Africa, ebola was barely a blip.
So asserting the odds of living on if the US is struck by the virus are 1 in 35,000,000 just undermines your own credibility.
The problem with such absurd assertions about the sky falling and world ending is...the next time people take them less seriously. And the next even less.
Until they stop worrying and become cavalier.
Your information, though largely correct (like: isolation precautions in medical facilities leave a lot to be desired, and ebola is very very very bad), is filled with half truths and hyperbole that push it into the land of the absurd.

Anonymous said...

You're going to fix that with tents?
It isn't a panacea, but it will offer more than your asserted 15 total beds in the entire CONUS capable of handling ebola patients.

Genius, pal. Call the Pentagon, and tell 'em you've cracked the whole problem, all by yourself, because all we needed to do was pitch more tents all along.
They already know. People have been handling deadly chemicals in airtight tents and hazmat suits for decades, on a regular basis (sometimes 12 hour shifts....unlike Africa they have access to cooling suits).
Anyway, done here.
I won't post again, don't worry.

Anonymous said...

In africa, they don't have 3 million people counting on truck drivers to deliver tomorrows groceries. Or 9 million. They don't have a large percentage who would die without daily or weekly meds, which aren't stocked locally, and can't be stockpiled by individuals. Their supply chain looks completely different.

They don't riot if their favorite sports team wins, let alone if the stores are closed for a week.

Since you sound like you work for the CDC, the patronizing attitude that the people need to be kept from panicking annoys the HELL out of those of us with better than room temperature IQ and the motivation to take care of ourselves. I suggest reading your own CDC guidelines on Business Continuity and Pandemic Flu. Ask yourself the same questions they ask, like, can your business survive with only 50 of people coming to work? Then ask if modern western society can survive if only 50% of people go to work.

Having been thru civil collapse (Rodney King riots in LA), terror attack (I was 8 miles from ground zero on 9-11), and a variety of natural disasters (Rita, Ike, Harvey)- the thread that holds our society together is thin and strained.

Airline pilots for some airlines can rightly be fired for lying to passengers about the severity of any issue. This is the way it should be. Treat people as adults. Don't lie to me. The pushback when your lies are exposed, and the CDC DID NOT COVER ITSELF WITH GLORY IN 2014, will be worse than the truth.

nick

Also, nit picking over one idea (where the reservoir is) is a great but tired tactic to distract from the bigger issue. If this gets here, we are not prepared and people will die. Let them panic! What do you expect them to do? Run out and stock up on food? Close the border? Quarantine arriving flights??? HOW IS ANY OF THAT A BAD THING?

Aesop said...

@Anonymous Simpleton,

You win.
I finished my errands early, so here's your prize:
All your considered wisdom, posted on the front page where everyone can see it.

Thanks a pantload!

https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/dunning-kruger-why-dumbass-next-door.html

RegT said...

Aesop,

At your suggestion, I trotted over to Wikipedia to read what they had to say about EVS (Shoot me, I'm lazy so I clicked on Wiki instead of a more reliable source.) Imagine my amazement to discover this:

"Another aspect of survivors of the Ebola virus, is that it could become sexually transmitted, as the virus is present in semen nine months after the individuals are declared free of Ebola.[13] A 2017 study found the virus in the semen of some men after more than two years following the recovery from the acute infection.[14]"

Holy shit. Or, maybe Unholy shit. Perhaps male survivors should be required to undergo bilateral orchiectomy? A mere vasectomy might not suffice.

Stephen J Carter said...

The Marxist ideal of open borders is embraced b/c the belief now is no one should escape, that anybody suffering anything anywhere should be shared by white populations everywhere. This this is not a flaw or unintended consequence of open borders, it's in fact a feature, an intended aspect, essentially their raison d'etre. It's not even malicious, it's just part of our new, dumbed-down, cultural Marxist worldview. I kept thinking of the first few episodes of Season 1 of The Walking Dead, minus the zombies of course. Exponential disease vectors are fairly common when you get sustained clusters of risk factors, as is the case now. In 2030 the USAs population stands at under a million. Totally possible & plausible, with a probability of maybe 60%.